16 Drive Mini Itx FreeNAS Server Builds

[NASCake]

Howdy all,

First post, hope I can contribute to the forum. I'm a freelance integrator with a annoying drive to come up with unique server builds. So this story starts with me acquiring 30 16 drive 3U chassis that are built for PCIE over cable made by a defunct company called Ciprico. Let me also make it clear I'm not here to try and sell these things. I'm using them for my clients where I have some control over servicing them. Personally I'll have one at the shop replicating to one at the house. I think it's a unique setup and my methods might fold over to other applications you good people can use. Back to the boxes. These chassis were built to house a backplane that allows pcie over cable connectivity back to a server. You install the controller in the chassis then connect the Sata/SAS backplane to the controller. Sound cool right? Well all the PCIE target hardware, cables and backplanes are expensive. I tried to get rid of them as is but just had no buyers because the target buyers, video editors, are not interested in one generation back. So I started scheming to turn these things into servers. But in no way is the chassis able to support a mainboard, its not very deep, there is a 120mm fan and 2 expansion slots that were made for the old backplane setup. No way to get access to the ports on the mainboard unless you completely cut up the rear plate on the chassis. I tried cutting it up and was successful but there was way to much work involved and my eventual goal was to sell these things. The only mainboard that will fit in any way is a Mini ITX board. The chassis had no mounting hardware that would match the Mini ITX mounting setup. My solution was a small platform that was tapped to fit a #6-32 fastener. Which is one size larger than what typical mainboard mounting hardware is. Now that I have no plans to cut any more back plates I needed a new plan. After measuring and placing the mainboard 1000 times in the chassis I came up with it mounted sideways with the port side of the mainboard facing the right side with just enough room to connect one VGA panel extension cable, one cat6 panel extension cable and a small 4GB usb flash drive in the usb port. The four small platforms are epoxied to the base of the chassis using a jig I came up with that matches the mainboad mounting holes. The panel mount cables allow for access to VGA, ethernet and I added one dual USB expansion slot setup that connects to the mainboard internal usb connectors. The board supports on 16X pcie card so I squeeze in a variety of controllers from rocketraid 2340's to the rebranded IBM/LSI 8 port controller. Other mods include adapting the 20 pin 480W power supply to 24 pin and adding a 4 pin 12V adapter and 50mm fans mounted to the bottom of the cover which drops them between components. I've built a core I3 version that supports dual gbit ethernet. Here are my specs

Operating System/ Storage Platform: FreeNAS 8.0.4
CPU: AMD Brozos Dual core 1.6 GHZ
Motherboard: MSI E350IA-E45
Chassis: Ciprico 5116 MediaVault
Drives: Up to 16 Sata II
RAM: 8GB
Add-in Cards: RocketRaid 2340
Power Supply: 480W
Other Bits:

Usage Profile: Everything from serving media to enterprise SAS ISCSI setups.

Here is the chassis, I'll be posting more photos of the setups shortly.

Thanks

~NC

 

[Patrick]

Just wondering, what drove the decision on the HighPoint card versus others?

 

[NASCake]

Just wondering, what drove the decision on the HighPoint card versus others?

Honestly it was a combination of the large number of FreeNAS users that had good luck with the RocketRaid cards and deals I found on the 16 port model. I've got 4 2340 systems out in the field now and so far so good but use has been minimal, just basic file serving and backup, no heavy database calls or large read write requests. I've changed my direction somewhat due to the higher cost for the 16 port cards. Lower cost 8 port cards in combination with the controller on the mainboards I'm using still support 12-14 drives. I'm starting to build core I systems using a board manufacturer I just became familiar with called Jetway. So far I'm happy with the board but I've only got one on my bench who needs to go through the ringer.

Patrick I'm glad you chimed in. I found your site searching for info on the IBM branded LSI board, the BR101. I've got a source for as many of these as I need at a great cost but I'm having some issues with the first one I picked up from my source. You've got tons of great info on the card but can't seem to find reference to issues I'm having. Heading over to the hardware section now to post, hope to see you there =]

~NC

 

[NASCake]

Some pics

Complete shot of the mainboard showing it sideways in the chassis.

Another top down shot

Shot of the panel mount extensions

It's a tight fit but with additional 50mm fans that I mount to the case top that fall between the controller and backplane and above the CPU it stays very cool.

~NC

 

[boomish]

Just curious where you obtained the bracket for the ethernet port.

I'm thinking of rebulding a buffalo NAS Device with a Mini ITX Board and would need to hack in a couple of Ethernet Ports to support it.

Thanks

 

[RimBlock]

I have been investigating the same sort of product for months now and have yet to find a chassis that matches what I would like to do. The one you have found would seem to be a good compromise.

The biggest issue that jumps out is that you are being severely limited by the single GbE network connection. Where storage but not speed is a driving force, that may not be an issue. This, I have found, is one of the biggest issues with a mITX based solution for these many hard drives. If you use a motherboard which has a mPCIe slot then you may want to look in to the various mPCIe -> Gbe cards available which could help get round this issue to some extent.

You could also look at a PCIe extender which would give more mounting possibilities for the controller enabling you to improve airflow.

Personally I would be tempted to build a JBOD unit from those cases, a SAS expander, a JBOD power card and dual SAS int -> ext connections and then link it to a 2U or similar 'head unit' (1U usually only gives a single expansion card slot) enabling multiple SAS cards / network cards for many more configuration possibilities.

Please do not take this as overly negative as it is very interesting reading what you have done, especially as I am looking around the same sort of area.

It would be great to see an update.

RB

 

[gigatexal]

the case is really cool, i'm looking to doing something similar. I bet it's quiet, got any benchmarks?

@rimblock - could you elaborate on the jbod setup? what would a sample shopping list for that look like?

 

[wyluliraven]

Damn I have a thing for mITX systems that push it to the stratosphere of constraints. Love it!

 

[Thatguy]

Very impressive. Well done!

 

[PigLover]

Very creative! The chassis/backplane can be one of the most expensive parts of a small home server build. You're build recycling this one is top notch.

Just curious: do you think the chassis is deep enough to support a SAS expander mounted at the existing expansion card cutouts? If it is you might have a pretty interesting little jbod build opportunity too.

 

[MiniKnight]

Think that Brazos board's fan is loud? Some small fans are quiet, others make annoying buzzes/ whines.

 

[zer0sum]

You need to upgrade to the new Avoton/Rangeley with 4 NIC's